29. 9. 04.

Respected Comrade!

I was very pleasantly surprised by the communications from Sergei Petrovich and Martyn Nikolaevich concerning your political position at the present time. I need not tell you how difficult it has been for me over the past year—the interruption of those good relations which had always existed between us before. In view of the communications indicated, I think we should not dwell on the past; we could, probably, restore the old relations exclusively on the basis of our common positive tasks of the present and future. If I am mistaken in this, you will, of course, correct my error, but I consider it my duty, after my conversation with Martyn Nikolaevich, to make the first attempt at a direct and straightforward clarification of our relations.

Respectfully yours,

N. Lenin
My address:...*

In the hand of P. N. Lepeshinsky

* The address is not given in the manuscript. Ed.

Sent from Geneva to Paris

First published in 1930

in Lenin Miscellany XV

Reproduced from a copy written